WordGazing: Let’s Hope the Gov Sings

Saw this on a major news outlet’s Web site about important legislation that a governor was reconsidering:

“The governor said it is his policy not to say if he will sing or veto anything during the session … .”

Funny, isn’t it, how a simple switch of two letters can alter the meaning of a sentence? Heck, this transposition alters legislative procedures.

* Turns out the governor exercised his veto power on the referendum. Too bad he couldn’t sing.

The Kind of Day Today Is

“[Y]ou can’t help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn’t spell it right; but spelling isn’t everything. There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn’t count.”
—From The House at Pooh Corner, by A. A. Milne

[Photo: Original toys that inspired the legendary Pooh tales.]

WordGazing: When Politeness Collides with Meaning

As I walked across a local park recently, I saw a large wooden sign that gave me pause. I had to read it twice to make certain I was reading it correctly. Here’s what it said:

To aid your enjoyment
please eliminate
ball playing
dogs
litter

Besides the obvious lack of punctuation, the word eliminate confused me about the message. Had the writer of this warning used a dictionary, s/he would have discovered these definitions for eliminate: to put an end to, to get rid of, to expel (to force to leave)—none of which convey the real meaning of the sign.

It’s not a mandate to rid the park of things (ball players, dogs, litter) that are already there. Nor is it suggesting that people would enjoy their park visits more if they eliminated one or more of the items listed. It’s a plea to park users to prevent any of these things from being in the park in the first place. People aren’t being given permission to “put an end” to dogs; they’re being asked to NOT play with or walk their dogs within the park’s boundaries.

Sometimes when we search for a way to say something politely or to say it without ruffling anyone’s feathers, we get trapped in a world of euphemisms and synonyms and quickly digress from our original intent. Sometimes the best way to say something is the most straightforward way:

So everyone may enjoy this park,
the following are prohibited:
ball playing
dogs
litter

This article was originally published on Lull: Practicing Life Between the Past and the Future, 3 January 2010.

WordGazing: Proof of Proofreaders’ Value

Found this ad online this morning while I was browsing for new clients:

HI I am looking for author to help me with my upcomming book. (Technical and non-friction author preferred.)

Of course, running a spellcheck program could have fixed the poorly spelled upcomming. But what about non-friction?

Technically, this isn’t a misspelling; spellcheck would have ignored it. Yet, if it doesn’t communicate what the writer intended, it’s a typo.

Now I’m left to wonder what the writer intended. Is s/he simply averse to conflict? Or does s/he really REALLY need an editor?

[Photo of 1901 proofreaders by Thomas Lewis.]

Suicide or Murder? A Case Punctuated by Amateurs

I watched a crime drama the other night in which the police declared a woman’s death an open-and-shut suicide. But when a private investigator arrived on the scene, he took one look at the suicide note and knew better.

The telltale clue? An errant apostrophe.

The woman had been an exceptional English teacher and the p.i. knew she wouldn’t be caught dead inserting an apostrophe in the possessive its.

That alone didn’t solve the case—merely opened it back up. But criminal minds best be warned: Those elementary English lessons do pay off in the real world. Good writing skills are important no matter what your line of work is. And something as small and seemingly meaningless as an apostrophe can lead to justice.

This article was originally published on Lull: Practicing Life Between the Past and the Future, 7 July 2009.

WordGazing: It’s Only A Letter

Years ago, I had a publishing client whose boss—the owner of the publishing company, no less—thought proofreaders unnecessary. As a former journalist, he believed writers should be held accountable for their writing mistakes; that is, writers shouldn’t make any mistakes. Hence the reason this publisher had no staff proofreaders.

What the owner failed to consider, aside from the fact that precious few writers are perfect, were the myriad goofs and glitches that can occur over the course of production: Copy moves, falls away, gets rekeyed by designers, changes fonts—you name it, I’ve seen it happen.

This all came back to me this morning when I opened an old issue of ARTnews magazine. Staring at me was this ad copy:

If the world tresures it, Huntington T. Block insures it.

The company was announcing its six new staff members—most of them vice presidents, none of them proofreaders. The copy is Block’s slogan and is probably on all of the company’s marketing materials.

Now most of us can be forgiving and see the typo for what it is: a mistake. After all, only one little letter dropped out, and a fairly useless one, at that (Andrew Carnegie would have been proud). We can still comprehend the meaning of the sentence.

However, there will be others who take the typo as a sign of how their art might get treated by Block: carelessly. The insurer will never know how much potential business it lost from this one omission.

Clearly, details matter. I bet no one at Huntington T. Block would dare suggest that proofreaders are unnecessary.


[Black Iris II by Georgia O’Keeffe.]

This article was originally published on Lull: Practicing Life Between the Past and the Future, 19 February 2010.